the year 2012

almost a year since i was last here and a lot has happened since then. here's a recap to the year 2012 in random order.

i assisted in cooking my first turkey ever.. of course with chef father-in-law and i have to say it turned out mighty fine. defrosting that 5 kilo bird was painful. it took 24 hours to defrost, marinated overnight, about 2 hours prep and another 3 hours and 45 minutes to cook. but it was definitely worth it. the meat was juicy and tasty and of course we had heaps of food. it's may not be my first home cooked christmas but it's a first traditional one with turkey and all.

after much travelling back and fro home to kl, the hubby and i managed to end up in new york this year; all in 2 weeks planning and luckily enough flew out a couple of days just before hurricane sandy hit. as expected, loved the city and everything about it - the lights, the late nights, the atmosphere... everything. i manage to catch up with friends i haven't seen in a decade and now everytime i watch a movie shot in new york, i scream "new york!!". someone's gonna get sick of me eventually >_<

the beginning of the year was a bit of a whirlwind. started with ups and downs. some downs too private to share and some downs turning into ups. there was the difficulty in selling our apartment but yet we were able to buy the house we wanted and surprisingly it all worked out. the hubby and i always grateful that although we may not be the rich, but we're lucky in what matters and that we do live comfortable lives.

i turned the big 3-0 this year with no major parties since the hubby was overseas. i did however get a very belated surprise giant birthday cupcake when he came back. and when i say surprise i mean surprise considering i starting singing along to the birthday song not realising that it was for me.

became the proud housewife when i made tong yuen (glutinous rice balls) from scratch for the winter solstice. not that i wasn't the proud housewife before ... but seeing it was so pretty and something different from the everyday house cooked dinners i couldn't help but beam in happiness. one step closer to being a stepford wife. hahahahaha .. that's never gonna happen!

i got the chance to overcome my slight fear of go-karting and now go full throttle without that thought stuck in my head that i will overturn at corners. now i just need to learn to cut the corners right. *evil grin*

dyed my hair purple... then pink. welcomed a few cute adorable babies into the world, non of which are mine of course and built more lego this year than i have ever built in my life. this year flew by so quickly i didn't even have time to blog about it. now to bring on the new year!

happy new year!

christmas bbq on the park

gizmo met a new friend today - mosby. a super cute mini schnauzer where half the time you're trying to find his eyes. we ran late as usual for the christmas bbq (as per previous post).... but it also meant we got there in time to eat *grin* there weren't all that much food to cook since we had prepared plenty. the weather turned out to be really good considering when we woke up it was so cloudy we were worried it was going to rain. the dogs were having an awesome time playing, the girls were chatting and soaking up some vitamin d, the boys were playing with the frizbee and we playing our silly kris kringle game. christmas is almost here and we'll be on holidays again! yeay....

a nice quiet christmas...

it's been a relaxing day, just chilling with G and the hubby; oh and just a little cleanning that we missed out on yesterday. we celebrated christmas eve having an awesome chinese dinner at eastwood and then chilled at alex's. tonight, we back there for a potluck dinner. tis the season to be jolly.....falala lala la la la la! merry christmas and i do hope that all everyone who reads this have as awesome a christmas as i'm having.

btw - that's not my christmas tree up there if you hadn't guessed. :)

no cleaning means killer dust bunnies survive

for some reason, it's super dusty here. 2 days and you can see that thin layer of dust slowly building. so since its christmas tomorrow, might as well do the thorough clean so we can enjoy our long weekend dust bunny free; it's funny how G stays as far away from the vacumn cleaner as possible.

just one more day....

oh i can't wait for the long weekend to arrive.... one more day, maybe even half day at work and it's christmas! D & i headed out to the city coz the shops were opened till midnight. it's a big deal here considering everything closes at 5pm. we were good this time and didnt really come home with anything, maybe we just weren't in the shopping mood. so anythingway, this weekend i'm gonna make catch up on my sleep and make this christmas a chillaxing one. merry christmas!!!

the sitting elephant

with christmas around the corner and the many secret santa/kris kringles we'll be having, we dedicated today to shop for all these items. i never realised how difficult it was to actually buy decent, practical, nice presents at a low budget and its never fun receiving food stuff so we never buy chocolates or sweet. where's the creativity in that? while shopping we ended up shopping for each other and D bought me a new charm for my bracelet. can you tell what it represents???

christmas shopping!

after my first week at work, i realised that i didn't have many dresses i could actually wear to work without tights. and of course wearing them with heels makes them look even shorter. so today i did a little christmas shopping and came home with another pair of shoes, some dresses and a new phone cover. merry christmas to me!!!